DFW does not have one small-bay rent.
It has a 1,200-SF shop with a roll-up door, a 2,500-SF contractor bay with room for three trucks, a 5,000-SF flex suite near a freeway, and a 12,000-SF warehouse bay with a very different tenant pool. Putting all of those spaces into one broad “industrial rent” number is a quick way to lose the part of the market that actually matters.
SpanVor reviewed a current DFW availability snapshot of 1,010 small-bay lease offerings. 708 disclosed an annual asking rate.
The metro-wide headline is straightforward:
- $12.48/SF/year median asking rent
- $13.27/SF/year average asking rent
- 55.5% of priced offerings fall between $10.00 and $14.99/SF/year
That is useful context. It is not the answer to what a particular business—or a particular owner—should expect. The suite size and the submarket change the conversation immediately.
The middle of the small-bay market is asking more
The strongest rent band in this snapshot is not the largest bay. It is the practical middle: 1,500–3,000 SF. It is also the most heavily represented size band, with 289 offerings and 230 published rates. Its $13.50/SF/year median asking rent is $1.50/SF—or 12.5%—above the $12.00 median for offerings from 3,000 to 15,000 SF.
The average tells the same story. Asking rents average $14.06/SF in the 1,500–3,000-SF band, compared with $12.66/SF across the larger 3,000–15,000-SF offerings—an approximately 11% premium.
That makes intuitive sense. A 1,500–3,000-SF suite is large enough for equipment, materials, light assembly, inventory and a small office—but still attainable for the working businesses that make small-bay industrial work. It is where a contractor, service operator, e-commerce business, specialty repair shop or local distributor can often start without leasing more building than they can use.
| Advertised suite size | Priced offerings | Median asking rent | Average asking rent | |---|---:|---:|---:| | 1,000–1,499 SF | 88 | $12.00/SF | $13.84/SF | | 1,500–2,999 SF | 230 | $13.50/SF | $14.06/SF | | 3,000–5,999 SF | 193 | $12.28/SF | $12.88/SF | | 6,000–11,999 SF | 116 | $12.00/SF | $12.40/SF | | 12,000–15,000 SF | 24 | $11.75/SF | $12.09/SF |
That premium is meaningful, but it is not a law that says smaller is always more expensive. The sub-1,500-SF band has a $12.00 median in this snapshot. The clearest pricing pressure sits in the functional middle, where the tenant pool is broad and the commitment is still manageable. Building quality, location, doors, parking, yard, office finish and the inventory being marketed also shape the rent.
The pattern is exactly why a metro average can mislead. The average asking rent across all priced records is $13.27/SF, yet a user looking for a 2,000-SF bay sees a different market than a user looking for 8,000 SF. For owners, it also shows why dividing a building into the right suite sizes can affect income—but only when the layout, circulation and operating features still work.
Where the listing volume is showing up
Dallas and Fort Worth account for 253 of the 1,010 offerings in the snapshot—about one in every four records. They are followed by Arlington, Irving, Grand Prairie and Mansfield, each with enough published-rate evidence to be useful as a starting point.
| Submarket | Offerings in snapshot | Published-rate offerings | Median asking rent | |---|---:|---:|---:| | Dallas | 128 | 86 | $12.72/SF | | Fort Worth | 125 | 85 | $12.00/SF | | Arlington | 50 | 38 | $12.00/SF | | Irving | 43 | 31 | $11.51/SF | | Grand Prairie | 37 | 27 | $12.75/SF | | Mansfield | 32 | 27 | $12.95/SF | | Plano | 30 | 19 | $14.00/SF | | Garland | 28 | 22 | $12.00/SF | | Carrollton | 28 | 21 | $12.48/SF | | Haltom City | 25 | 21 | $11.10/SF |
These are the most represented submarkets in this particular listing snapshot—not a ranking of which places have the strongest demand or the best assets. But it is a useful map of where an owner, broker, buyer or tenant should start asking more specific questions.
For example, Plano’s $14.00/SF median asks are above the market headline, while Irving and Haltom City are below it. That does not make one submarket “better” than another. It says that a real rent conversation needs to start with the local bay, its functional features, its size and its competitive set—not with a DFW industrial average.
The high and low ends are not where a metro-wide average points
Among submarkets with at least 10 published asking rents, McKinney sits at the high end of this snapshot with a $19.00/SF/year median, followed by Lewisville at $17.00/SF. At the other end, Weatherford shows a $10.00/SF median, Denton $10.12/SF and Alvarado $11.00/SF.
Those are large enough samples to be worth watching—not labels to apply blindly. A local rate can reflect suite size, age, yard, door count, parking, office finish, freeway access and the particular inventory being marketed that week. But the spread matters: a tenant, broker or investor using only the $12.48 DFW headline would miss a $9/SF gap between the observed McKinney and Weatherford medians.
That is the practical value of looking at small-bay one submarket and one suite band at a time.
Price bands show a broad market, not a single clearing price
Among the 708 offerings with a published rate, more than half sit between $10.00 and $14.99/SF/year. Another 149 offerings, or 21.0%, sit from $15.00 to $19.99/SF/year. The market is broad enough that a $10/SF offering and an $18/SF offering may both be perfectly real—and may have almost nothing in common operationally.
| Annual asking-rent band | Priced offerings | Share of priced offerings | |---|---:|---:| | Under $10.00/SF | 109 | 15.4% | | $10.00–$14.99/SF | 393 | 55.5% | | $15.00–$19.99/SF | 149 | 21.0% | | $20.00–$24.99/SF | 46 | 6.5% | | $25.00+/SF | 11 | 1.6% |
The point is not to hunt for a single DFW number. It is to know what to compare.
The better small-bay rent conversation
Before using a comp or a broad market stat, start with five questions:
- What suite size is actually relevant? A 2,000-SF bay and a 10,000-SF bay can serve different businesses and price differently.
- Which submarket is the real competitive set? A lower asking rent across town is rarely a substitute if labor, customers, freeway access or service territory are wrong.
- What makes the bay work? Doors, clear height, parking, yard, power, office finish, visibility and circulation often matter more than a decimal point on rent.
- Is the rate an asking rate or an executed lease? Asking rents are a market signal; they are not a signed deal.
- How much evidence is behind the comparison? A rate supported by 30 published offerings deserves more weight than a one-off outlier.
Small-bay is not miniature big-box. Its practical market unit is the suite: a specific space, in a specific location, with features a real business can use.
That is the lens DFW owners, brokers, tenants and investors should use when they look past the headline.
About this snapshot
This is a DFW advertised-availability snapshot prepared August 20, 2026. It includes 1,010 small-bay lease-offering records, 708 of which disclosed an annual asking rent. The intended suite focus is roughly 1,000–15,000 SF. Advertised asking rents are not executed rents, effective rents, vacancy or absorption. One property may appear more than once when multiple suites are marketed. When an advertised range was shown, the underlying snapshot uses the low end of the stated range.
This article is educational and strategic, not investment, legal, tax, leasing, or financing advice.